Dancers Smell a Rat At Nutcracker

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Ballet dancers picketed last Thursday and Friday night's performances of The Nutcracker after Washington Ballet management locked them out. Management subsequently unilaterally cancelled the entire Nutcracker run instead of negotiating a contract with the recently organized dancers, whose primary concerns involve health and safety issues, including injuries to the dancers. Other unions turned out on the line with the dancers, including stagehands, musicians and laborers, who brought along their giant inflatable rat as a stand-in for the Nutcracker's missing Mouse King. "Dancers live to dance," says their union, American Guild of Musical Artists. "But their talent, their skill and the beauty they create isn't enough to protect them against injury, to protect their jobs, or to guarantee the necessities of life."